jackie hayes

I don't know why you'd call this an "artificially created...seemingly great division." It is a genuinely great division. Pitching everywhere, with a load more on the way (Liriano and Verlander, present and accounted for, Zumaya, sorta, and Sowers having his coming out party). Decent offense everywhere, except possibly the Twins (and even there, I think Morneau will be something, and they've finally figured out that Cuddyer's decent).

What it usually says is that you're shopping like crazy for a center fielder... Moises Alou, tmi. BA, WAY tmi. That's just sick.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 04:42 PM) There are always plenty of threads here that come through the negative view point. I also think what people hate around here is how ridiculous game threads can get and that kind of flows over onto other threads. When you see a poster say "GARLAND f***IN SUCKS" for letting up two runs in an inning and then he shuts them down the rest of the way, next thing you see that same poster make a real negative post and you realize how reactionary some people can be. Anyways, my point is when things go wrong for a little while this board becomes 100 percent negative with people literally jumping off buildings(choke avatars anyone). When you some some pessimists start threads like this, it's pretty natural for optimists to come into the thread and shoot them down a little bit especially when you have a team 25 games over .500 on July 3rd. To me, this is is just an unnecessary thread, I mean "White Sox maybe be in trouble if pitching doesn't come around," well...duh, everyone knows that. What do game threads have to do with this one? I just don't like this lumping of everything negative in one pile. I get tired of the Garland stuff too, but I also get tired of the 'Coop and his magic fingers' response to any crap pitching performance. Anything lacking thought. But suppose there were a thread giving some facts about Uribe's performance in past years, suggesting that it should be smooth sailing the rest of the way (looking at monthly splits or something, I dunno, just throwing something out), and makes the point that 'defense is important' -- I'm not gonna go in there and tell the op that he's just another Goldilocks with his eyes shut to what's happening on the field. Why is so damn hard to look at the merits of the post you're responding to, not some post that annoyed you yesterday?

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 04:24 PM) Sure seems like there is some panic. I've seen a ton of "our starting pitching sucks. We're not going far in the playoffs with this starting pitching." There sure are a lot of posters who give up on players REAL early on this site. But is it here, in this thread? The question is whether it's possible here to make a negative point and not be shouted down.

Old article, it just got worse. One was charged today.

Calling it panic doesn't make it panic.

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 04:01 PM) http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/ARI/2001.shtml Oh, great, so you want to start some Brian Anderson bashing, too?

QUOTE(RibbieRubarb @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 03:47 PM) Perhaps it's the assertions that are derived from the facts. That we will be in third place, Santana/Liriano will never lose again this year and the Tigers will not falter. Now I agree our pitching has not been consistant this year. But our starters have a history and it's a solid one. But to assume that Minnesota/Detroit will not have any bad runs (especially with rookie/young pitching and unbalanced/unproven line-ups) is NOT looking at the facts and only looking to find the negative against us. But hey...We all want the same thing here. White Sox winners. He said we "could" finish third. The Santana/Liriano thing is overblown, agreed. 7-3 the rest of the way would be one HELL of a half. Which some people mentioned. I didn't take it as "the Tigers will not falter." He said they won't "collapse", and mentioned how 44-36 (iirc) is reasonable without one, although that would obviously be faltering, and would definitely involve some "bad runs". That's reasonable. And I've spent the whole season expecting Detroit to collapse.

QUOTE(LowerCaseRepublican @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 03:37 PM) Legitimate criticism is worthwhile, entertaining and thought provoking. However, I do believe there is a contingent on the board that just wants to b**** for the sake of b****ing, no matter what happens in any given game (i.e. the "Thome, can you please adjust to the inside pitch" thread or the "We have to sweep Pittsburgh" thread or the "Well, we're going to be 4.5 out after the Cubs series" comments et al.) I swear for some (read again, some) of the people here -- if the White Sox walked on water, there'd be some ST'ers decrying how they didn't swim. That said, let the legitimate discussion continue to devolve and make Soxtalk into a personal diaper for everybody in a mindset that things like evidence, facts and logic will do little to no damage. Fair enough. But the real question is why this issue came up in a thread that it obviously doesn't apply to. Because some pessimists overreact in one place and threadcrap, that gives optimists the right to overreact and threadcrap somewhere else? The op provided a ton of facts and analysis. Meanwhile, there's yet another of those 'jeepers, calm down, fellas' threads sprung up that provides zero in the way of analysis, and noone's jumping down his throat.

QUOTE(RibbieRubarb @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 03:11 PM) My mistake if it was sarcastic. I agree that was a bit harsh turn of phrase. I think what i meant is that we are not taking things into perspective when we look at the facts. To say based on one month that Minnesota will not lose another game when Santana/Liriano pitch and we will end up in third place is a bit extreme. There are other figures and facts out there to point otherwise. It seems that there is a gravitation towards the darker side of the facts on this site when our team is doing so well. Thats what is confusing. Be critical, sure. But there should be some perspective behind it. Imo, the op provided a lot of perspective. Looking squarely at questions like, How tough will it be for Detroit to reach 100 wins?, is pretty good analysis for the standards of mb. Throwing out the 'chicken little' pic at a post like is just overreaction, another way of telling someone to shut up. I'm not disagreeing with you, btw. The starters are all above their career era averages (except Jose, maybe, I'm not certain -- but I think you have to look at those first couple years as rookie-like), so I think there's a very good chance we'll see significant improvements. And BA can't possibly hit this badly the whole year. But at least provide those "other figures and facts" you mention if you're gonna criticize that detailed a post.

QUOTE(RibbieRubarb @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 02:49 PM) Symptomatic. How is Greg Walker worthless? It's that extreme negativity that's devoid of any factual support that is prevelant lately that I find confusing. All due respect, but -- you're comparing that to this thread, which began with litany of "factual support"??? You can't pick out something totally unrelated and say, 'There, point made.'

QUOTE(KipWellsFan @ Jul 2, 2006 -> 11:14 PM) Pretty much every update has the leftwingers gaining and are now within less than 4 percent. I gotta run though. I don't think this will be clear cut by tonight anyways. That would make sense, right? Some of the more isolated areas of the country are extremely left, and they'll also be the slowest to get results in -- yes?

QUOTE(VAfan @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 11:03 AM) I wonder if Ozzie shouldn't have left Buehrle and Contreras off the AS team -- neither deserved the nods based on the way they have been pitching lately -- and just shut them down to get some rest. QUOTE(SEALgep @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 11:17 AM) Wait... How does Contreras not deserve an AS spot? Contreras was voted in on the players' ballot, Ozzie didn't have a choice on that one. Oz only picked PK, Mark, and Bobby (iirc).

QUOTE(Linnwood @ Jul 2, 2006 -> 08:53 PM) So unless I am reading that incorrectly, they were all Player Ballots.... So STFU about Ozzie "taking all of his players to the game instead of the most deserving players." I don't think that's right. Link. Ozzie picked Mark, Paulie, and Jenks. Interesting that Jose got more player ballot votes than Santana.

QUOTE(Melissa1334 @ Jul 2, 2006 -> 08:04 PM) heard on the score that ozzie said if anyone got hurt, crede makes it.... Doesn't it just make sense that if someone got hurt, someone from the 5-next-best ballot goes in? This process is so screwed up.

QUOTE(TheBigHurt @ Jul 2, 2006 -> 07:59 PM) Mauer not on the Team at all? What did they say he was batting? .392?! Jesus... He's a reserve. He just wasn't voted into the starting lineup.

QUOTE(Felix @ Jul 2, 2006 -> 07:55 PM) Anyone with a TV knows how dominant Mauer has been too, didn't help The tv would only help you learn about Mauer or Liriano if they played the Yankees at least half the time.

QUOTE(LowerCaseRepublican @ Jul 2, 2006 -> 07:53 PM) The 'Stros got 1 (Berkman) but show me anybody else who is putting up the kinds of numbers that should be there for the NL from the 'Stros -- ones that could oust anybody in there. The only person for the Sox that you could make an argument for not being there is Buehrle but everybody else is deserving. If anybody complains about snubs in the AL -- for f***'s sake Mark Freaking Redman got in. Yeah, but Redman's just a toxic byproduct of the ASG rules. Not a good comparison.

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Jul 2, 2006 -> 07:24 PM) Schilling? I think Liriano had a better first half then him or Buehrle. ^^^^^^^^^

Wow, IRod is 23? I didn't know the steroids were that effective.

Liriano, Hernandez got royally screwed. Ironically, the Royals just screwed themselves.

QUOTE(jphat007 @ Jul 2, 2006 -> 07:12 PM) Good selections by Ozz. Shows how awful KC is that he had to take Mark f***ing Redman. I imagine he won't see the field. You have to wonder if he just picked a name out of a hat on that one.

Line from Wojciechowski's article at ESPN -- "...I'm dying to see if Yankees fans figured out a way to vote Melky Cabrera onto the roster."

QUOTE(beautox @ Jul 2, 2006 -> 06:58 PM) as if it isnt already Yeah, I don't want to make too strong a case for it. But at least they have played half-seriously the last few years. If they'd just get rid of the fan voting...

QUOTE(whitesoxin @ Jul 2, 2006 -> 06:58 PM) Shut up. Wtf??? Calm down.